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[DVFP] Meeting the Fat Man (J 2.2)
The walk from the Arena to the Fat Man's palace is short in distance, but long in time. The first gate is lightly guarded, and you're let through when you tell them you have something for The Fat Man and drop Juice's name. The paved (yes paved) road between the barracks of the small army housed here is busy, with troops marching by, a jeep headed out to patrol, guards doing drills, even some fighting. The equipment isn't new, but everything's well maintained. There's less of a uniform and more of a style of clothing and coloring. Black primarily with a red accent. Sometimes crimson scarves, other times patches or gloves.
There is more scrutiny when you come to the gate to the palace grounds. Do you try to hide any weapons? The guards seem reluctant to touch the organ, but they do look at it pretty closely.
"June Weaver," the guard wearing a wide-brimmed hat that the more experienced "soldiers" favor, says as they look you over, "How did you get this from Juice again?" They seem pretty suspicious. This guard, Missed, you've watched over them, but they don't know you. What dirt do you have on them?
What do you do?
Comments
I work my way through the gates at my own pace, observin' but not lookin' hard. Black and red..just like me, really, bitin' my style. The bustle is pretty normal, but the off-uniformity is not.
I don't try to conceal any weapons. I leave a scalpel with the guards at the gate, no big, but I might need it.
"Do you want the short version or the long one?"
I can't fault Missed for her suspicion. I had to cut the organ out of him, which means I either scavenged his corpse or made him into one, logically speaking. Or I guess I could have talked to someone ELSE who did the cuttin', but who are we kiddin' here?
Missed I've seen pawing around shady shops, lookin' for electronics and other interestin' trash. She's a soldier, but she's fascinated with tech. I wonder if it's from an old life, or just a quirk. Either way, if Fat Man can't give her somethin' more engagin' than guard duty she'll use the feelers she's put out in Truk Stop to skate, maybe grit her way through an apprenticeship.
Not that cars will satisfy.
Missed glances at the other two guards, then clears her throat meaningfully, "The true one. If that's also long, so be it." She stands more or less at attention. These guys are pretty military, crazily so for a bunch of convicts.
Long version, then. I did give her the option.
"I presume that Juice was dead somewhere in the region of five to ten minutes when his residual consciousness and resonant internal systems pinged out to mine. It looked like a slow bleed-out sorta death. The last of his nervous impulses were spent givin' me directions to his body and the implant itself, and what to do when I found it."
I prop against a crutch, dip into my jacket and light up a cig. Maybe I'm trying to burn out the pure stink of militant groupthink. Maybe it's the memory.
"He ran in with some Sand Snakes, who were also the end of a Rufe's car, but not of Rufe. Where Juju got his internals I don't know, but I'm willin' to bet the big man does. Any more than that and I do worry that I'd be tellin' you things above your pay grade."
"In case you need the short version, ah, Feed magic?" I spread my hands in a spirit of ironic theatrical reveal.
One of the guards scoffs at this story, the other one, a balding guy with a grimace, shakes his head and loses interest. Missed, though, she's really into this. She nods along, picking up all you're putting down. "Fuggin' A, June. He's that wired? Are you?"
Now, to those two men, I am a Grade-A Waterhead. Which is fine, I prefer that they mistake me for a crazy woman.
"I can't speak for Juice." A puff. I let her pick up the rest as I look her in the eyes and exhale. If he was that wired, I regret not knowing him in life.
That's enough for Missed. By the by, this is her:
She waves off the others, "Come on, June Weaver, I'll walk with you to the palace." She walks slow so you can uses crutches and move at your own pace. "Do you truck with any of these implants? I mean to say, do you have any? How'd you catch that signal? Longwave antenna? Dumb luck?"
She's trying to pump you for info, eager for details. What do you do?
I click along the paved road with Missed. "You could say that. I used to grow 'em." I look over and gauge her reaction. Yup, full of eagerness.
"What would you say if I told you yes? 'Cause if wires are what you want, I can't help you. At least, not yet. But if you just want to know, well. I could tell you some things. Talk theory. Programming. You found anything in shady shops that takes software?"
Her eyes widen, "You grew implants? Whoah." She kicks a small rock off into the lush green grass that only grows inside the palace grounds. It's watered. Daily. "I picked up a chip. It was burned up a bit, but I'm fixing it. Slow going. What kind of programs?"
I tap ash off my cig, out of the way. "Any kind, I suppose, but mostly programs that bridge the human-machine divide, biomimetics, sensory parsers. Does your chip have a little loop painted on it, like a figure 8?"
You crutch your way down the long path made of smooth pebbles, a walking path, something that doesn't fit here. A set of sprinklers come on, spraying precious water onto the soft, green grass. You see a beautiful man and woman, dressed in white, gauzy clothes, they're walking a dog, a little terrier or something. Ahead are the stout double doors that mark the entrance to The Fat Man's palace.
Who are these shiny, happy people? Why the damn grass? Alla this affectation puts my nerves on edge every time..I get that it's a display of power, but in the service of some outside-defined sense of comfort..what a strange place.
Thank goodness for Missed's blunt but properly focused chat. "If that's so, then it's a classic beginner's piece. That would make you pretty lucky." I consider her push, wishin' I could put out this cig on somethin' shiny and new, settlin' for just bein' here. "I can do it tomorrow, today I'm expectin' business. And I can give you an hour or two of my time for free, but learnin' to program takes more than an afternoon or two, and I have to charge for that time. More than that, do you have a computer?"
It'd be cute to have a gun-toting apprentice.
She takes a breath, then steps up to bang the knocker on the right door. It's a ring in the mouth of some gargoyle-looking monster. The ring on the left door knocker is through the creature's ears, oddly enough.
The door opens and Missed speaks with the pair of guards wielding assault rifles in riot gear. Neither of them look at you with pleasant intent. But Missed escorts you down a couple hallways towards The Fat Man.
A beautiful woman, perhaps in her thirties, comes out of one room, her skin almost as pale as yours, her hair a strawberry blonde. She's almost as pretty as Cinch and Sierra, maybe more so due to how gentle she seems, like a deer. She's wearing a gauzy dress, no shoes. She looks at you, then to Missed, giving Missed a gentle nod, then walks ahead of you down the hall.
Missed touches your arm to indicate you should take a right, leaving the blonde woman to head down the corridor towards some unknown destination. Missed opens a locked door, and gestures for you to go in. It looks like a study, with mahogany furniture and leather chairs, paintings on the walls. A cabinet with bottles of alcohol and matched glasses sits alongside a small work desk with a laptop on it. Missed stays near the door. Nobody else is inside.
What do you do?
I nod and observe the changes in Missed's mien. I wonder what sorta guy she knows, and more importantly what sort of machine he's got. Is this eagerness I'm feeling?
The quiet of this place is oppressive. It feels foreign for me to link the two, I love peace & quiet, lonely hobbies like readin' or gardenin' or tinkerin'. Another show of power, is that what this is? Hui.
For a few dreamy moments I have the self-serving expectation that this lovely blonde apparition will be observing whatever meeting I've won. But she continues on her way and my door is found for me, separate. I break the silence by thanking Missed. Force of habit.
I let out a low whistle at the quality of this study, flick a quick glance to the laptop. Like I said, cagey man. It's much too early to drink but I uncork a bottle and sniff before settin' it back on its shelf and sittin' down at the desk. I turn the laptop towards me, finger the touchpad to wake up the screen if need be..
"Well, then. This certainly feels cozy."
The screen wakes up at your touch. You see a holo destktop for a moment, then the light for the cam lights up, the laptop hums as a program executes. A window pops up, a video window. You see a man, The Fat Man himself, on the screen. He's smoking a cigar, sitting in a dark room. There's some light music playing in the background. Something you've heard before while reading. What is it?
Cigars that I'm jealous of and an aversion to meeting me in person. A familiar song.
"Good morning. I think a worldly man such as yourself should understand that sometimes our attachments fall away. We're stripped bare and our plans fly from us." I pull the small canister with the implant out of my jacket and place it in sight of the camera. "He told me who he was moving this with, and how much for. He was either someone you trusted very much, or someone with particularly isolated wetware."
June, you feel something like a localized feed around you, sudden and intense like a pulse. What do you do?
I watch the Fat Man, watchin' me, a corner of my mouth ticking upward at his answer.
I was tempted, sore tempted, to interface with the implant in some way, strip it of the data and negotiate with it as a mere prop instead of the meat of the matter. But ten barter is not the sort of trade I'll play that game with. Too easy to hand it to me and then kill me and take it back, secrets preserved. It's still too easy, to be honest, but.
I'm just so curious if the Fat Man will need an interpreter for this thing.
I galvanize myself against the sudden pulse. "I have not." Then I gather myself and push back, systems excited by the activity. Missed might even get itchy palms from this, I don't know.
Sounds like you're opening your brain to the feed here, June. Let's see that.
Rolling Weird: (Rolled: 2d6+2. Rolls: 1, 6. Total: 9)
Marking XP; (3)
What do you do?
That's output I usually reserve for myself. I want to sneer and tell him 'nice toys' but I don't want to become one. I'll save this knowledge for next time, maybe spoof those scanners. But right now I've got no reason to lie. At least, no good enough reason.
"Ten barter." I pull the cigarette out of my mouth, let a little spit pool in a cupped length of my tongue and dip the cherry end in just enough to wick fluid up and extinguish her. I squeeze the rest out between two gloved fingers and rest the dog-end on the desk, waiting for a response.
About now I wish I had some of that bourbon in a glass. I lean back in the chair, weighin' my options and personal tastes, back to watchin' him watchin' me. "In between my personal ventures, I do have some time and an advantaged position for freelance courier work." I breathe and go on to explain..
"I cannot take on a biological port on your behalf. For me to safely carry your data you will have to encrypt it, and I can provide encryption services for you, separately, if need be. I have twelve hundred mass units of onboard data storage free." Not that I fuggin' intended for them all to be free, but FPS flattened that when they tried to scrape my memories away.
A thought crosses my mind. "The Flags and Poles battle between UF and Ace's crew. Could I get a front row seat, as a favor?"
He glances off camera again, then back to you, sits back, and asks, "Is there anything else, June Weaver?"
Eight hundred? He's got to be yankin' my chain, that's not data, that's heavy duty executable software. That's memory maps of someone's fuggin' life story. That's half of my college roommate's porno collection.
"Understood."
I tip my hat and stand up. "Always root local, is what I've learned. I believe that's all between us today, unless you have anything further." I pause for his reply.
Missed heads for the door, much quieter after your meeting with The Fat Man. In fact, she's been quiet since you entered the palace. It's the kind of quiet one is when trying to avoid attention. She leads you to a stairwell, down to a basement where she introduces you to a frail older woman wearing thick glasses and poorly fitting dentures. Her name is actually Payroll. She pays you in Depot bucks, 10 barter worth, in Depot. Missed mentions the Arena, and Payroll writes out an IOU to the Arena for you, two tickets. After that, Missed leads you back out of the Palace.
I keep it quiet like Missed does. Nothin' much to say, walls have ears, no ripples in the water, all that sort of thing.
Well, tits. Depot bucks, huh. Nothin' ever simple, I'll have to get some of this exchanged. I let Payroll know she looks lovely today and tuck my windfall into my jacket.
I fall back into conversation after Missed does. "Well, then. He and I agree about somethin', fancy that. I don't care much for violence, but the world is a host of variety, and the United Front deals enough out, they can take some back."
Missed escorts you out of the palace grounds to her spot at the gate, then makes some noise about meeting up with you later for "what you talked about". Where to next?
I let Missed know that I'll be available to visit her tomorrow morning. For now I'm more comfortable invading her space than her invading mine.
Boring though it may be, I swing by the market for a few essentials I'll need to start some new batches of brew and make myself dinner, and head to my room in High Rent.
I hang up my jacket and bundle things out..Rufe will get five barter in some of my more portable jingle from the Irons. Beckett gets two for haulin' me out here and for watchin' my back on that road. I'm keepin' three for the rent and maybe it's time to expand my garden.
That done I'll settle in and tend to my plants. Deadheadin', cuttin' off bad wilt, gentlin' roots. Water where it's needed, just enough and no more. The aphid I find on my Gallica I'll give the hard stare..its brains cook off and it keels right over.
As you're dealing with the Gallica, there's a soft knock at the door. A check through the peep-hole shows that it's a young boy, about nine or ten, rail thin and dressed in a t-shirt, shorts and decent boots. He's wearing the symbol of a courier, an in-town runner. He's sweaty and huffing a little as he shifts his weight from foot to foot.
I frown at the peephole. News is a bad thing, far inferior to flowers. With a grumble I step back a little and open the door, leanin' down to see this kid eye-to-eye. "What's your hurry, son?"
Before he can properly gather the breath to answer, I go further inside my room to consider my collection of ready food.
He reaches into his little fanny pack and pulls out a folded sheet of paper, piping up with, "June Weaver?" If you give any indication that you're her, he moves like he'll hand you the paper. He hasn't stepped inside, not an inch, and one glance tells you this kid is terrified of you. He just wants to hand this off and run like crazy.
What do you do?
"Paper, huh? My, how I've moved up in the world." I return and pluck the paper from his hands. "Git." Permission to leave is enough like mercy, I think.
The runner scampers down the hall, the only sounds are the thuds of his boots and the hum of the halogen lights until you close the door.
The note, though stained with the runner's sweaty fingerprints, is folded neatly and scrawled in loopy script.
June, We've got one for you. Skorps are sitting on 'em. Room 18 at Fall On Inn. - AceWhat do you do?
I shake my head, lock the door and read. Well, well. I hope it's Mimi. I tuck the note away and have myself a light snack before gettin' my jacket back on and haulin' out for this new business.
You make your way down the carpeted, comfortable hallway to the lift, which does work, but doesn't run on electricity (don't ask). Down one floor to ground floor hall, out to the door, past the guards and into the oppressive heat. It's almost enough to take your breath away, June.
You crutch across the road from the west gate to Fall On Inn, the place where a barter buys a week's stay "whether you need it or not". Of course, Management will clear out a paid-for room if the occupants are, you know, dead or somesuch.
Room 18 is a Skorpion room. The gang blares thrash metal non-stop. You can sometimes hear acetylene torches in there, once there was a buzzsaw cutting metal. All day long. It's the wildest non-stop party this side of The Pit. And June, you've invited.
When you knock on the door, a big fireplug of a man answers it. He seems to recognize you, mutters the name "Vinegar", then brings you into a much small, adjoining room, more like a water closet with the toilet ripped out. Because that's what it is. There, you see a tied up, one-armed Mimi. Mimi hasn't been beaten, as far as you can tell, but she's tied to a chair, mouth's gagged, and she looks weary and pissed.
Fireplug says, "Ace sent word you can turn this screw." He crosses his arms, standing just outside to watch.
What do you do?
Room 18 seems like a whole humpin' institution from the outside..from the inside, it's a wall of noise and bodies. I've got to be in a whole other mindset to tolerate this place. I've got to want to feed off the spectacle and the secondhand stimulation. There's a whole different heat in here, one of blazing nerves and all-fired senses.
Fireplug shows me what's behind door number two and restrain the smugness from my face. "I can do that. Any noise she makes'll be swallowed by the room, too." I switch to one crutch and hang my jacket on the spare, lean the mess in a corner and top it with my hat. I turn to address Fireplug. "You there to keep her from pryin' my face off? You can close the door or leave it, I'll let you know if there's trouble."
Without words leavin' my lips, Mimi hears a purr from me in her mind. "Hello, baby doll, are you ready for my kinda fun? I'm all out of rohypnol, of course.."
Still more or less facing Fireplug, my gaze slides over to her.
Fireplug just shrugs, "Won't tell you how to... do your job then." He shuts the door, which doesn't lock. Well, it probably used to lock.
Mimi's eyes widen when you talk in her head, but she pushes it to a glower. Her metallic arm is lying in the grime-covered sink. She's humped, and you stare her down. She's defiant, but she knows... something is coming.
What do you do?
I let out a grunt of affirmation, my concentration dedicating itself elsewhere as he speaks. I stalk around behind her and rest my arms on the back of her chair, one on each side, slowly resting on my haunches behind her. Although nobody tends to remember it, I'm a bit tall. I know the weakness of my body diminishes that impression, and it's too bad.
I push energy through my modifications as I settle in, my network readying itself to speak with Mimi's. A common auditory signal is an easy calibrator, and with the right rhythm it's also a slight hypnotic, so I speak the following aloud, my face right next to her ear. Low and steady, I explain.
"I used to play the violin, on the outside. Dabbled with the cello, too. A bow strikes the strings, and makes them quiver, and that becomes music. Strings that are next to each other, they'll shake in sympathy. This can amplify the note, or deepen it..or dampen it. Everyone understands sound waves in some capacity, easier than radio waves. Easier than the rhythms of the brain. People like hearin' that they're music on the inside."
I feel out Mimi's recognition of my voice and let that lead me in to the rest of her, workin' her systems, testin' our connection and buildin' my way up to the suggestion; lose that flags and poles game. Fail. Cook it right up, or I'll cook you right up.
"Quiver for me."
Mimi, small under your gaze and size, tenses with the sound of your words. She tries to spit out the dirty cloth that's been shoved into her mouth, but it's tied by a belt. When you command her to quiver, she exhales through her nose and almost pants with a mix of fear and anger, struggles at her bonds, starts trying to rock left and right in the chair.
You slip through, enter her mind, feel her anguish and rage, her pains and her fears. You feel her arm being mangled for running from the UF. You hear the sound of the bonesaw severing the remains of her arm. See the bright light above Parcher's operating table as he attaches all the electrodes and connections, "making her whole again".
"Oop, haha." I exclaim gently as she tries to rock the chair.
Ah, here I am again. The fear of an unwilling mesh, it's..exciting, but overbearing. I'll still take it, this connection, this whole feeling. The map of Mimi's senses, the roads of her memory. A life of violence.
"Interesting..Parcher, huh? The arm his idea or yours?" First, it's for me to shake in sympathy. But I remember, oh I do, all my own rages. My own memories bubble up..
I'm coming to in my chair in the dorms, elated, conductive gel still wet on my forehead - just after my first synaptic dive, which is like VR's sexy older sister. "That was amazing! You got the schematics from some Tokyo U alum? Sato something? The potential of this is.." A leaden weight lands in my gut..the potential of this is utterly oppressive. Where do I fit in?
I'm walking the quad in winter, years after my first or even twentieth dive, a heavy coat hanging on my shoulders. A search alarm goes off in my feed notices; someone is burning a pile of my manuscripts back in Atlanta while I am stuck here at Cambridge. I execute some code to commandeer a camera on the scene, and watch with my own eyes yet not in person, as a pack of strangers gleefully adds to the fire. One of them is an official. I call..I call : |:: |||:: ||:::: |: |||: |::: ||:::: |: ||: ||::: ||: |:: |: ||:: |: | in a panic. I can't breathe.
I straighten up a little, painfully and carefully, and slide my hands over her eyes. Poor thing is lost. Time to sink her further down this well. I lean my head against hers.
"I could write you a book on always hurting. I already have. Why did you run from UF in the first place?"
I wonder if Ace has thought to get her metal arm re-socketed. The pain, it's either an installation issue or an interface issue. Does it report pain in the arm's sensory space, or just where the metal and the meat..meet? I'll push a diagnostic through.
You catch a sharp intake of breath when you cover Mimi's eyes and she screams, but it's muffled by the gag. She's drooling out of each side of her mouth and you feel the cottony taste she can't get rid of.
She's going to fight you on this one, June. You're in her head, though, so she's ice skating uphill. Also, you've got a few moves that might be triggered here. What do you do?
I'm here to do my dirty work, plant my suggestion and go, fun though it may be to toy with Mimi and repay her more seriously for our last run-in. I've learned some interesting new things. If she's good maybe I can help fix that arm, and if she's bad maybe I can use it as leverage within her own system to harm her.
Next I'll shake her up.
I hold on. "You despair really easily, did you know that? Nothin' keeps you from whinin' about your arm, givin' up on a hard look at yourself, lettin' strangers tell you what your body is so you can be useful to them. It's pathetic, and now I see you, girl."
Be useful to me, Mimi. Choke on my fuggin' mercy.
You've met criteria for time and physical intimacy if you'd like to plant some strings in Mimi.
Rolling In-Brain Puppet Strings: (Rolled: 2d6+2. Rolls: 2, 6. Total: 10)
Marking XP: (4)
You feel your strings slide into Mimi's cortex, overmapping her synapses and worming their way into her core. Into her pain receptors and her cognition functions. And she knows. She whimpers once with a feeling of dread.
What do you do?
I slowly and deliberately fold up my connection with Mimi and stand, sort of falling upward against the wall to my left as my tired legs lose balance. I push away and get my hat back on, then my jacket, and retake my crutch.
Clickin' over to the sink, I pick up Mimi's arm. Maybe Parcher was humane enough to give it a lock code so that Mimi can take it off when she sleeps. Otherwise it's like sharin' a bed with a wire monkey.
"We're all done here. Be good, Mimi. If you can't be good, at least be brave. Next time you want to leave the front, make sure you have a place to land." The context here is simple; keep tryin' to leave. Be free. Own yourself.
I set the arm back in the sink and push on the door, glance around for Fireplug. "I'm all set. You can send a runner or whatever was planned."
Tears wet Mimi's eyes and she sniffles wearily when you leave her. Fireplug is right outside. Behind him you see some spazoid doing a weird, spastic dance in front of a few folks on a couch zoned out. Fireplug looks past you to Mimi, but asks you, "Will she lose the match?"
"It isn't enough for Mimi to lose, others must win. But I found a rebellious core in her. It's gonna be a show." My hands act almost on their own to provide me with a cigarette and a light from my pockets.
I quirk an eyebrow at the dancing scene behind plug. If Fireplug doesn't make any motion to keep me, I leave.
He doesn't keep you. In fact, he walks with you to the door, a physical warning for others not to mess with you. He doesn't open the door for you, though.
Where to next, June?
I get the door for myself just fine. Where to, indeed? I don't need to show Missed any beginner's programmin' until tomorrow mornin'.
What I do need is a date to accept this second ticket to the autoduels, and to find Stazie and pass along Rufe's share of the take.
June, I'm curious how you find a date!
Do you want to consider this a 1-Barter thing and use this?
When you make known that you want a thing and drop jingle to speed it on its
way, roll+barter spent (max roll+3). It has to be a thing you could legitimately get
this way. On a 10+ it comes to you, no strings attached. On a 7–9 it comes to you,
or something pretty close. On a miss, it comes to you, but with strings very much
attached
You can drop extra jingle, if you wanna.
Or, instead, is there a place you go? The bar in High Rent? The Pit? The shady shops? Somewhere else?
You know, with a face like mine you'd think I would be used to buying my company, but I'm not. Barely tried it even when I lived next to Diamonds. I just don't think any of Esco's girls would take my business twice.
I step into the bar at High Rent, intending to have a drink and give it an hour. Maybe Beckett will be in, maybe I'll spot a friend. I wouldn't like to share this with a stranger, I don't think. But I'm comfortable enough with myself to go by myself, too.
At High Rent, you run into Rothschild, who knows you. This is her:
Rothschild is your old scrounger friend you saw in the arena, no telling how she ended up here at a nice bar. But she's sure glad to see you, and doubly happy to take you up on that ticket!
End scene.